'Ultimate terrorist' in 'Iron Man 3' an American or British creation

Fans of Iron Man might be in for a surprise. The villain in this summer’s “Iron Man 3” has been labeled the “ultimate terrorist” by writer/director Shane Black. But The Mandarin is, for all intents and purposes, an American invention.

We use as the example Colonel Kurtz from “Apocalypse Now,” this guy who may have been an American, may have been a British National, someone who is out there doing field work, supervising atrocities for the intelligence community who went nuts in the field and became this sort of devotee of war tactics, and now has surrounded himself with a group of people over which he presides, and the only thing that unifies them is this hatred of America. So he’s the ultimate terrorist, but he’s also savvy. He’s been in the intelligence world. He knows how to use the media. And taking it to a real world level like that was a lot fun for us.

[After Tony Stark’s experiences in ‘The Avengers’] I thought about this 21st century reality and kind of oddball zeitgeist of America and terrorism and all the weirdo stuff that this country seems to generate and co-create. So I thought he should be a little freaked out.

So a character named The Mandarin has morphed into an American or British National, and he isn’t a communist, but a former intelligence agent gone rogue — driven by a hatred of America because of the tactics he used in the field.